31 July 2010

Overused movie music. This cinematical post is a little half-baked (as most of their content is) but I like the subject of movie music that you never want to hear again. What are your votes most overused music in movies?→Read more...

80s Earworm of the Morning: Sheena Easton's "Strut". I used to dance around to this when I was about eight. It definitely falls into the "I really had no idea what the lyrics meant at that time, did I?" category, along with pretty much anything by Madonna.

30 July 2010

Are we Canadians not to be trusted with razors? I was just doing some online shopping for a safety razor and blades, and ran into a problem when trying to checkout. Amazon wouldn't ship the products to my address. Has anyone else run into this? →Read more...

Did y'all hear that Mexican drug cartels have taken over a couple ranches in Texas?
Of course, the story has been debunked as paranoid bullshit. As usual, conspiracy-minded right wingers remained unconvinced. But if you want some real fun...→Read more...

MechaLongShot does anyone know if the lady singing "if you need me i will be nearby.. mountain high.. valley low" in the background here a sample or clone of some (traditional?) song: [NSFW language] Royce 5'9 - Everybody Goes.

29 July 2010

Any advice on cat towers? We finally have enough space to buy one of those cat furniture tower thingies. Our cat's not a huge jumper (especially now that she's getting older), but she likes having her own spaces and she desperately needs a scratching post, because we just moved from shag carpeting to hardwood floors. Any do's or don't's?

Help me name my blog Hey metachatters, I decided to channel my ranty angst into a blog about education policy and teaching. There are already many such blogs about there but I find most are written in a pretty bland style. I'd like to do better. →Read more...

Life's little achievements I finally broke my (mainly mental) 5km barrier on my run on Monday. Yay! 5.8km in just over half an hour. If my plan works, I should be up to 10 km in about 6 or 7 weeks. Any small achievements of your own you'd like to share?

Fraught with anxiety: We have two sick sugar gliders. Mya, our oldest female, was the first to get sick and we took her to the vet yesterday. Now one of our youngest boys, Boo, is coming down with the same symptoms.→Read more...

27 July 2010

Looking for Robinson Crusoe "Why do I need to circle around and invent, when a list of facts could do just as well or better: On an evening in October, your father dies suddenly of a heart attack. →Read more...

Pithy and or Inspirational Sayings and quotes Each employee at the cooperative market where I work is given the chance to update the white board that hangs in our window for a month. Some people pick a single quote and leave it up. Others change the sayings periodically through the month. August is my month, and I am drawing a blank. Can the bunnies hope me please?

See any bumper stickers you just love? This morning on the way to work, my husband and I saw a blue VW carpooling, license plate BLMEANY, license plate holder saying "Never mess with a redhead," (and a redheaded woman driving) peace signs on the red rear tail lights, and this bumper sticker.

These images, by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, are some of the only color photographs taken of the effects of the Depression on America’s rural and small town populations

26 July 2010

True Blood Discussion Thread (spoilers) : TrueBlood. This Week on True Blood, "I Got a Right to Sing the Blues": Eric's obvious, Lafayette is hurt, Tara has turned awesome, and a certain female vamp looks likely to bite it. We come in peace, Regular Bunnies, to populate your land with blood and HBO-style "relations." Err. Well, we still come in peace. (See, I lurked, accountless!)

Hey Providence! I'm coming to visit! I will be in Providence prowling around by myself all day while the bf works if anyone wants to meet up for coffee or drinks or vintage shopping. I'll be staying in the Thayer St area.

Daydreaming.... This place looks amazing. I wanted to go to surf camp for my 40th birthday, so I can be like theseladies, but things went all ahoo with the job search and then moving and all. Maybe this coming spring...who wants to go?

Deadwood Mr. gaspode and I just finished watching S2 of Deadwood. We've really enjoyed watching it, but have heard that S3 is not so good. Is it worth watching or should we just consider it done at the end of S2?

24 July 2010

Wow, they changed Google Images Like, just yesterday apparently. Still getting used to it. I use Images all the time; sometimes it's a good way to get research done backwards by looking for a likely visual to lead you to the good articles.

See this article? about how having a big head (thus a big brain, presumably) is protective against the effects of brain atrophy? I indexed this paper today. Was excitedly telling my friends about it, and they were all like "yeah, it was all over the news". Anyway, in case you missed it, here it is.

Do you use expressions like "It was a year ago, ish"? Is that a thing? I used that with a client today and she kept using it back and I wasn't sure if it's because it's a normal thing or because my client was picking up on my usage.

22 July 2010

Are these shipping rates unreasonable, or am I? I was going to order some books from a small, U.S. based specialty publisher. I picked out four titles (trade size, average length under 250 pages) and was placing my order when I was brought to a screeching halt by the UPS shipping rate: $25.76 (USD). →Read more...

MP3 Shuffle inspired by the first ten sites post this morning and by my having nothing to do this weekend, lets crank out some tunes. you know the rules, post the next 10 songs that play on your tunes device .

Photo Friday Advance? I haven't seen/heard any discussion for Photo Friday yet: Is there someplace it's being discussed? If it's fallen through the cracks this week, I'll be happy to pull a theme from my deep reservoir (ha), or we can discuss it here.

Intergalactic tuneage. Scientists have developed the technology and mysteriously chosen you (yes, You!) to select the first song broadcast into space for the pleasure of whatever beings there may be out there. Whaddaya pick?→Read more...

Baby Groundhog + Chunky Bar = Cute Sometime in the 70's, when he was 8, Michael brought his pet 7-month-old groundhog onto the set of Hodgepodge Lodge, a PBS children's show about animals and nature. There, it was revealed that baby groundhogs love eating Chunky bars.

A hidden world, growing beyond control The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work. (Three-part series from the Washington Post)→Read more...

20 July 2010

So my annoying and devious brain figured out a new way to give me a panic attack. Hyperventilation! God fucking dammit. I just had my first serious panic attack in a year or so because I was irrationally convinced I couldn't get enough oxygen and was suffocating.→Read more...

Just a thank you to shane (since apparently nobody else has yet) for the nice surprise in the mail: a plastic capsule with a Miigii and two other tiny plastic alien thingies in it! I can always use more things with faces staring at me on my desk. (NOT sarcastic)

Modern mix tape solutions? Is there some service with which I could create the 2010 equivalent of a mix tape and send it to someone electronically, to be used thereafter on a portable device?→Read more...

Help techie bunnies! think I fried my Blackberry!! Oh Noes....:( So talking with the OH recently, he suggested I get a micro USB cable to replace a broken BlackBerry charger. He explained at the time but it went right over my head why this could be a good idea and is right now unavailible. No, I didn't kill him. Yet. He's in theatre. On Sunday, but that's a whole 'nother story.→Read more...

17 July 2010

Adafruit vs. Solarbotics I'm thinking of buying an Arduino Experimenter's Kit to do some projects with my son. Both Adafruit and Solarbotics have them for $85. Adafruit charges $9.54 for shipping; Solarbotics has free shipping. Anyone have experience with either company? Thanks.

Word Game: I don't know the name, but it's the one where I think of a rhyming two-word combo (e.g. "mad Vlad") and then give a clue (e.g. "angry 15th Century impaler") and you have to guess my word combo based on the clue. Whoever gets it correct gets to make up the next one.→Read more...

The Turn: at the very heart of winged flight lies the banked turn, a procedure that by now seems so routine and familiar that airline passengers appreciate neither its elegance and mystery nor its dangerously delusive character.

Filmic.org - MetaFilter Film Club Books are great, but do books have stereoscopic 3D with surround sound? They do not. So: we now have the MetaFilter Film Club! We are chatting about movies including Kubrick's Lolita, and we are now taking nominations at Filmic.org. Come join in!

You ever date anyone on your sports team? I'm on a softball team and we just had our last game. I was thinking of asking out a particular team member after the season was over, but the captain suggested that we join the next league which starts in two weeks. →Read more...

Online Privacy Issues - There was a bit of a brouhaha at World of Warcraft regarding their forums. It seems Blizzard (the parent company) was going to (or did?) post forum users real names instead of their toon/player names. Read this first (or maybe this), this second and last but not least - this.

If obsessing was an Olympic sport I would be a gold medalist. Man, can I ever get preoccupied with something. Right now it's thinking about whether or not I should buy a house. It is taking up far too much space and time in my brain. →Read more...

Because Soon It Will Be Photo Friday we must now get ready to post pictures of Where We Live, which can be interpreted any which way you like, from room to house to neighborhood to county to country and, thus hey, even to planet. Coming this Friday July 9 to a metachat near you!

Havin' a Partaay! Whew!
Finally figured out which of my million-four social networking passwords worked for "The Chat". Now it's time to see if I can get through to y'all using this so called "smart phone" without flubbin' it all up...AGAIN.
Anniewhooo..→Read more...

06 July 2010

Should I be proud? I kinda feel proud. My latest outline of a New Project is very gender-balanced AND I wrote a "girl realizes she's a worthwhile human being" WITHOUT taking her glasses off. Since I'm writing for mainstream media, I feel prouder than I should.

Ask MeCha: Supermarket Bags After reading Shepard's Metatalk posting about re-usable grocery bags, I was wondering how many of you-all used them? We try to but we always seem to be the only ones in the supermarket who do. Also when we do use them, the bagger usually gets grumpy about it since they're not used to using them and it slows them down.→Read more...

keyboard shortcut? In Word, is there a keyboard shortcut to get rid of a dialog box - any dialog box - that popped up by mistake? (happens to me a lot when I'm trying to use another keyboard shortcut and hit the wrong key.)

Tomboy Style — To define a tomboy requires searching far beyond the simple notion of wearing boy's clothing. Tomboys have influenced the expanses of popular culture including fashion, film, music, and literature. Although the tomboy is often identified by clothing, what makes her wholly so is an inherent sense of confidence, rebelliousness, and adventure.